Legal regulated esports betting has a great future, but one factor that has held back the necessary legislation is the perception that esports is for children not adults.

The new wave of sports betting legislation sweeping the US includes strong measures to prevent under-age gambling, and to prevent gambling on sports where players are under age. Esports legislation follows the same principles, but legislators need to be sure that operators can comply before they trust them with a license. European regulators face the same issue.

“We have developed a new service that covers more than 95 percent of all CS:GO teams and their age majorities. Any operator can use the service to manually or automatically suspend bets with teams with a majority of players under 18. The betting industry will go a long way to ensure compliance and with this service it’s relatively easy for them.”

GameScoreKeeper integrates age profiling with its data supply

As a major supplier of esports data to esports betting operators, GameScoreKeeper is ideally placed to provide a solution.

Using player registration data from the main esports teams, GameScoreKeeper can track the age profile of all the major esports teams. Data feeds to esports betting operators can now include whether teams include any under-age players, or whether a team has a majority of under-age players—often a regulatory condition under existing laws.

Matches involving these teams can be automatically excluded from being offered for wagering. Protecting the operators from regulatory beaches, and removing an incentive that could potentially encourage children to try to place bets.

Betway is the first esports operator to adopt the new protections

The new Player Age Service is now in use at leading esports betting operator Betway. Betway Head of Esports, Adam Savinson commented:

“We are committed to providing the widest selection of markets on esports while at the same time ensuring all bets live up to our strict responsible policies and comply with regulation on athletes’ age. The Player Age Service from GameScorekeeper ensures that we can maintain this efficiently.”

Over in the US, where esports betting is very much in its infancy, Scientific Games is becoming a major player in the sports betting market. It is partnered with Caesars Entertainment and provides a sports betting platform to operators in many states where sports betting is legal. In February, GameScoreKeeper announced a new partnership with Scientific Games.

The company is providing Scientific Games with its Esports Scoreboard Product, together with live and historical data for CS:GO, DOTA2 and League of Legends betting competitions.

When esports gets more established in the US, GameScoreKeeper now has a partner capable of delivering the data as part of existing betting platforms in many states across the country.

These casinos and online operators can now offer legislators the evidence they need to show that esports betting can operate safely without encouraging under-age gambling.